paces should be
just as carefully counted, and accuracy expected in preserving the
numerical proportions. But this needs much tact and patience on the
part of the kindergartner, as well as skill in teaching; for the
principles of drawing the curve are much less obvious to the child and
much more difficult for him to comprehend than the measurement and
calculation of straight lines with their various lengths and
inclinations.

These inventions with rings, which are often wonderfully
beautiful,--so beautiful, in fact, that the uninstructed person is
sometimes skeptical as to their production by the children,--may also
be preserved in permanent form by parquetry. It is furnished in
various colors for this gift, as for the seventh and eighth, and is
greatly enjoyed by the children.

If any should fear that the long contemplation of rectangular solids,
planes, and straight lines in Froebel's gifts should tend towards too
great rigidity and barrenness of imagination in inventive work, it is
obviously within our power, as has been shown, to vary this
mathematical exactness, which is no doubt less agreeable to the child
than the graceful image of his own fancy (could he attain it), by
introducing the curve freely into many of the occupations and
exercises with the kindergarten material in general.

Forms of Life, Beauty, and Knowledge.

The rings are of course not as well adapted to the production of
objects constructed by man as were the sticks, but, nevertheless, the
material is not without value in this direction. Various fruits,
flowers, and leaves may be made, as well as such objects as bowls,
goblets, hour-glasses, baskets, and vases. When connected with sticks,
the number of Life forms is obviously much increased on account of the
union of straight and curved lines thus made possible. Tablets may
also be added and contribute a new element to the possibilities for
invention.

For symmetrical forms, however, the gift is admirably adapted, since
the child can hardly put two rings together without producing
something pleasing.[76] Borders enter here in great variety, tablets
and sticks being added when desirable, and the group work forms,
combining the seventh, eighth, and ninth gifts, give full play to the
creative impulses of the child, while calling constantly upon those
principles of design which he has learned empirically.

[76] "It is true that the child produces forms of beauty with
other material a